


Causation

by Foodmoon



Series: Oddball fics [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Competent Naruto, Gen, Naruto and Kurama swap places, Protective Kurama, implied future relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 12:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14164383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foodmoon/pseuds/Foodmoon
Summary: Naruto's a little bit more introspective. It makes a difference.





	Causation

**Author's Note:**

> Don't ask me, I woke up with this fic eating my brain.

This Naruto is slightly more introspective. It’s a slight difference, not visible to the casual observer, but it’s an important one.

He meets the fox monster inside him when he’s four. And sure, he’s huge, and scary, and mean. But so are most of the adults, and at least the fox is on the other side of the bars so he can’t hurt him, and he’s not human, so his words don’t hurt as much. After the day Naruto’s had, he’d much rather spend time annoying the fox by talking at it than face more inexplicably mean humans.

By week two, he’s totally used to the fox’s bloodthirsty threats and considers it just the price one has to pay to talk to him, kind of like waiting three minutes to eat cup ramen.

Three months in, he starts consulting Kurama _(the fox has gotten tired of being called ‘grumpy kitty kitty’ and told Naruto his name)_ on pranks. Kurama’s so surprised that he briefly forgets to be hostile and actually makes some good suggestions. If the village thought Naruto was bad on his own, they live in terror of his pranks with Kurama on his side.

When he is five, Kurama has a hissy fit over something and Naruto finds out that the villagers hate him because of Kurama, and his parents are dead because of him, and he stops talking to the fox for a week.

But no one’s ever said Naruto was bright. He forgets and starts talking to the fox again, and the fox is bored enough by then to pretend it never happened.

At age six, Naruto accidentally finds out that the forbidden section of the village library is a really good place to hide because no one ever looks for him there. With a bit of help from Kurama, sneaking in becomes a regular thing when he doesn’t want to be found. Of course, he gets bored and starts reading one of the forbidden texts. It’s tough going, because he can barely read. So he has motivation to apply himself in class and his reading quickly improves, even if his writing stays abysmal.

Then he finds out that he has to improve his writing skills to do some of the jutsu properly and improves that too. Not that his grades improve. He’s too busy learning forbidden techniques to care about school, and Kurama points out that any sudden improvement in class would be suspicious anyways. Naruto could care less about suspicious, but it makes a wonderful excuse to slack off.

He teaches Kurama all the jutsu, of course, because Kurama really doesn’t want to learn and annoying the fox is the best way to distract him from bloodthirsty boredom and anger. Kurama is _terrible_ at jutsu. He’s so bad at it that Naruto actually learns a lot more from teaching Kurama basic competency in a jutsu than he would by learning the jutsu on his own. He even has to find a few scrolls on the basics in order to teach Kurama some of the subtler jutsus. Not that Naruto is subtle, but he’s a lot better at it than Kurama.

His mental landscape gradually shifts from echoing halls with the occasional slosh of psychic water to a more comfortable, dry rooms that bear passing resemblance to the library. With many, mostly empty shelves. As he learns jutsus thoroughly, they appear, one by one on the mental shelves. It’s frustrating, because they only appear when he knows them so thoroughly that he doesn’t need to consult the mental scrolls to do them correctly.

In Naruto’s seventh year, three things happen. Three things that end up shifting history as we know it.

First, he discovers a jutsu that lets him permanently copy any jutsu he reads into his mental library, so he can study it at leisure. This, of course, prompts him to methodically go through every scroll in the village library so he can do just that with the _entire library_.

Second, while in the course of doing so, he finds a crumbling scroll so old that it’s on the verge of disintegrating even with preservation spells on it in a forgotten corner of the forbidden section, and learns that it’s possible to swap places with his foxy inhabitant if he wants to, though it’s reversible from his end.

Third, the Uchiha clan is slaughtered with only one survivor, the clan head’s younger son. And Naruto is just done.

See, the Uchiha were respected, unlike him, and now everyone is saying how they deserved it because they wanted to take over the village. Because apparently wanting to be in charge is worthy of death. And Kurama points out that it’s very unlikely to be true in the first place. The Uchiha were the village police force, they already had all kinds of respect and power, and they _protected_ the village. Kurama’s a suspicious grump, but he has a point.

The gossip about the Uchiha’s planned coup and ‘deserving it’ is too sudden, too well timed to coincide with their deaths, for there not to be someone behind it. And Naruto sneaks over to the Uchiha quarter to get a look, because Kurama’s curious. It’s brutal. Even Kurama is a bit taken aback. Men, women, old folks, kids, and little babies still in their cribs, all dead. So many dead that the village ninja haven’t been able to pick up all the bodies yet.

So Naruto is just done. It’s not that he hates people. For the most part he likes them, and he still wants to protect the village and become Hokage. But if this is how the villagers treat people wanting to lead, well, he doesn’t want that. And he doesn’t want to die because he got in the way of whoever was behind the Uchihas’ slaughter.

And for the first time, when they peek in on the survivor, who is blank eyed with horror and shock, Kurama expresses a compassionate sentiment. “We should protect that Uchiha kit.”

So Naruto makes a bargain with Kurama. In return for acting like Naruto, protecting those he likes, and not killing others unless it’s necessary to protect, defend, or carry out a mission, Kurama gets the use of Naruto’s body and the ability to personally act to protect the Uchiha kit. And Naruto gets to have all the leisure time in the world to study his inner library of jutsus, as well as the knowledge that anyone trying to kill him will be out of luck with Kurama’s innate healing ability on full.

If Kurama breaks their bargain, the spell automatically reverses, and the fox demon says that demons don’t break their bargains anyways, so Naruto isn’t worried. Much. He’s also made provision to be able to swap back temporarily if he needs to expand his library, to practice jutsu outside of his mind, or in the unlikely event of needing to use delicate jutsu to survive that Kurama is simply incapable of. Kurama is surprisingly approving of those conditions, and Naruto is puzzled until Kurama points out that in the event of needing to heal the Uchiha kit, Naruto would be much better at it.

So really, it’s no surprise that Naruto is terrible at graduating from the genin school. Because Naruto is cheerfully studying jutsu that would horrify his teacher, while Kurama struggles to fit his chakra into tiny human jutsus and puzzle his way through that aggravating thing humans call writing, and not loosen the filter Naruto placed on his chakra to make it feel less menacing lest it give their game away.

Then there’s Mizuki, and Kurama goes along with it out of curiosity, but Naruto nags him into trying to learn the jutsu while they kill time waiting and surprisingly, it’s way easier than the clones they practice in class. So Kurama has a great way to beat the crap out of Mizuki without giving himself away when his naggy teacher shockingly decides to protect Naruto. And he ends up graduating kind of by mistake.

Kurama, of course, has no designs on Sakura’s affection or any wish to be Sasuke’s rival, but he does nag and provoke the kit to push him to be better so he can defend himself. And he does decide that Sakura might make an acceptable mate for the kit, given the depth of her affection for him, so he watches out for her too.

Naruto doesn’t so much freeze in fear when the first enemy ninjas show up as Kurama has stopped to argue with Naruto about whether killing them is okay or not. They’re both shocked when the kit defends them.

When Sasuke states his desire to kill a certain someone, Kurama pulls him aside later and tells him. “You know it wasn’t your brother who killed them, right?”

The look on Sasuke’s face is shock, fear, and rage all tangled together. “I was there! He killed our parents in front of us and told me- What do you know of it! Stupid!”

He tries to jerk away, but Kurama’s faster, stronger. “At least I’m not stupid enough to think it was coincidence that the entire police force and their clan was murdered and everyone just ‘suddenly’ thought they deserved it. I don’t think it is coincidence that the one person left alive was your brother’s younger brother and yet no one blames _you_ for being an Uchiha. Did your brother tell you to kill him? Do you think it’s coincidence, when the Mangyeko is always awakened by watching the person you care for most _die_?”

Sasuke jerks, and stops fighting. “How do you know about that?”

“I read it once.”

“You hate reading.”

Kurama shrugs. “So? That’s just because it’s hard.”

“You’re stupid.”

“Not stupid enough to think that someone didn’t lie to your brother, that your brother didn’t lie to you, and that the villagers somehow magically like you but hate your family on their own.”

And Sasuke regards him with new consideration. “You think someone engineered the murder of my clan.”

Kurama gives him a sharp grin. “What better way to remove the village’s protectors than to make it look like one of their own went mad to the point that he slaughtered every last one of them, even the babies and his own mother? But a madman isn’t that methodical. A madman _might_ spare his baby brother out of sentiment, but not when he’s so mad he hunts down helpless kits like one hunts down rats.”

“Kits?”

“Babies.” Kurama corrects, annoyed at his slip. He lets go of Sasuke. “But whatever. You’re smarter than me, right? Why don’t _you_ think about it?”

He stomps off in annoyance.

Then there’s that stupid ninja with the big sword and attitude and the annoying kit that uses ice mirrors, and Kurama is hard pressed to keep the filter from slipping while he fights, until the Uchiha kit is needlessly protective again and _nearly dies_ in the process, at which point the filter slipping doesn’t really matter and Kakashi’s distracted anyways. So he beats the ice using kit and then ignores him as he wrestles his chakra back under the filter before Kakashi can get a good look at it.

And while Kakashi is distracted by killing the ice kit, Naruto swaps with Kurama long enough to heal the Uchiha kit a bit, just enough to keep him alive, before Sakura and the client come over and Kurama has to help Kakashi chase off the crowd of half assed fighters that even Sakura could probably defeat easily on a 1 to 1 basis.

The chunin exams are annoying. Naruto is engrossed in some text and ignoring Kurama, so Kurama doesn’t even attempt to answer the questions. He’d fail them anyways. It’s only because Sasuke spotted the ninjutsu earlier that he even got to this point. Instead, he spends his time observing, and realizes that the Hinata kit likes Naruto a lot more than he’d assumed, and is even willing to risk her own position to save his. Interesting. That was a sign of a good mate, and she is obviously attempting to court him, if clumsily. He will consider it.

He’s still considering it when the tenth question is given, and that one’s such a no brainer that he puts some drama into it because he’s honestly pretty bored by the test by now. Kurama’s still shocked when he passes, though. Humans are ridiculous. Really.

The weird snake human in the forest creeps Kurama out. And when he accidentally gets himself knocked out, he automatically swaps with Naruto.

Naruto is confused at first, and escapes Orochimaru’s notice as the creep bites Sasuke, taunts him, and slithers off. Willing to encourage not being noticed, because he’s nowhere near as tough as Kurama, as soon as Orochimaru is gone, Naruto picks himself up and goes over to inspect Sasuke’s wound.

Sasuke tries to brush him off and Naruto slaps his hand away. “Just let me look at it, moron. I can probably do something about it. Y’know, that won’t result in you potentially dying from infected bite, or poison.”

The Uchiha brat stills. “You aren’t Naruto.”

“Actually, I am. You’re usually dealing with Kurama.” Naruto tsks over the forming curse mark and riffles through memory for an appropriate seal until he can get a better look at the curse and hopefully remove it.

“Kurama?”

“Y’know, nine tailed fox? Tried to eat the entire village about 13 yrs ago? Thinks your brother refused to kill you when he agreed to weaken the village by taking out it’s police force?”

Sasuke just stares at him.

“Good thing for you that he’s around. He likes you. We’d both be toast if he hadn’t taken on that creep. Too bad he got knocked out, but he’s shit with this kind of thing, so it’s probably for the best. We’re going to have to seal this. This kind of curse feeds on your chakra, and you’ll just be a liability until we seal it.”

“ _You_ can seal it? That’s a high level technique. I don’t think even Sakura would have a clue where to start.”

“Oh shut it. Unlike Kurama, I’m _good_ with jutsu. Or are you just afraid of some pain?”

“Fine! Then try to seal it, stupid.”

“Yeah, yeah, moron. Just give me time to set it up.”

Sakura arrives, breathless. “Sasuke? Are you alright?” She gasps as she sees the mark. “What is that?”

Sasuke hisses out an annoyed breath. “Curse. Can you go stand guard? Sensei Iruka taught Naruto a special technique to deal with this, but it can’t be interrupted.”

She gives Naruto a disbelieving look, but he’s already drawing runes in blood on the tree branch they’re perched on. “Oh, sure. Tell me when it’s done.”

“You’ll know.” Naruto assures her grimly. “The screaming will stop.”

She gives him a horrified look.

“Sakura. Just go. It has to be done.” Sasuke interrupts as she opens her mouth.

After a brief hesitation, she nods and goes. Sasuke’s eyes track her worriedly.

“Don’t worry, she’s strong. She’s just intimidated by how strong you and Kurama are.”

“Kurama?”

Naruto rolls his eyes. He’s explained this already. “Yes. Y’know, the reason all the adults in the village dislike me?”

“I thought they disliked you because of your pranks.”

“Nah. Though my pranks _are_ awesome. He killed a bunch of people when he tried to eat the village. They’re convinced he’ll get out and do it again.”

“But he is out, right? That’s what you’re saying?”

Naruto makes an annoyed noise. “Sorta. See, when your family got destroyed, he thought you should be protected and we agreed that it was safer if he was out because he’s way tougher than me, so we made a contract. As long as the contract is upheld he’s out. Unless we’re swapping for something like this or to get me more scrolls to read.”

“You read? Willingly?”

“Not Kurama.” Naruto reminds and draws the final rune. “Ready?”

Sasuke looks at the seal and swallows. “Ready.”

“Ok, just remember, this seal relies on your willpower for its strength. If you falter, it will come undone and let the curse out. You can’t afford that until I can replace the curse with a dummy.”

“You can remove it?”

“Well, not right now. I need Kurama awake for that. But anyways.” He activates the seal and watches as Sasuke fights unsuccessfully to not make a sound, then passes out cold after the seal encloses the curse successfully.

Naruto is tempted to laugh, but the seal really is a high level technique, and without Kurama awake to lend him chakra, it has drained him, so he just concentrates on not getting a faceful of bark and dirt as he passes out too.

~

Sasuke wakes to the sound of fighting. He’s on his feet without even thinking about it, wobbly, but there. He takes in the scene with a glance. Lee, looking half dead, most of the other genin from the Leaf Village sprawled out unconscious or unable to fight further, two Sound ninja on their feet still, and Sakura… Sakura’s a mess. Her hair is chopped off messily, she’s been beaten all to hell, and there’s no way she’s going to be able to hold off the obviously fresh Sound ninja coming towards them, much less the second one.

Something snaps inside Sasuke. And no, he’s not the genius his brother was, but he’s not Itachi’s little brother for nothing, either. He forgets his fatigue and stalks forward. These fools will _pay_.

It’s not until Sakura grabs him from behind and begs him to stop after he’s dislocated the first one’s arms and is still going, that he realizes what a huge favor Naruto did him.  The seal is burning warningly, but the curse hasn’t taken him over. And it surely would have in his berserked state. It’s Sakura and her tears that make him hesitate, but he knows it’s the seal that allows him to actually see those tears and not just react to her as another threat.

The other Sound ninja takes his chance to negotiate his companions for a scroll and slinks off into the forest.

All Sasuke can think is that Naruto was right all along. Right that Sakura is strong, right about the seal being necessary, and probably right about his brother too. It’s a tough pill to swallow. But if someone had to use Itachi to kill their clan, it’s probably because they couldn’t do it on their own. And probably someone who was still lurking in the Leaf Village, plotting its downfall.

Suddenly, his life is topsy turvy, and he’s going to have to reassess everything. But he knows one thing, he has a new goal now, not killing his brother. He wants the truth.

And from there? One little thing after another goes awry in Orochimaru’s plans for Sasuke and the Leaf Village. And Danzo’s schemes fall apart bit by bit while he’s not watching. This version of history works out peace a little faster, a little easier, with a lot less angst and a few less dead people.

All because this version of Naruto is a little bit more introspective.

It is like the flap of a butterfly’s wing that somehow ends up the causation of a whirlwind. Unseen, but significant.

**Author's Note:**

> I do not intend to continue this. But you're welcome to run with it if you want to write with the premise.
> 
> Life gets complicated when they meet Jiraiya and find out the hard way that it requires Naruto to swap with Kurama and borrow his chakra for the summoning to work with any reliability.


End file.
